


The Million Dollar Man

by volti



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-07
Updated: 2014-04-07
Packaged: 2018-01-18 12:17:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1428175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/volti/pseuds/volti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You never thought love was selfish before.” “I never thought we had a way out.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Million Dollar Man

**Author's Note:**

> For [m3yil3](http://m3yil3.tumblr.com)! The prompt was: Mikasa’s mother arranges for her to marry millionaire Levi to settle a debt/financial problems. Mikasa hates the idea and has no feelings for Levi, who is in love with her, but goes through with it for the sake of saving her family. [Bonus if there is a moment when Levi gets hurt and Mikasa realizes that she really does love him in return.]
> 
> If it helps set the mood of the story for you, I had [Million Dollar Gold Digger](https://www.youtube.com/watch/?v=RG0KGgjFwbM) on repeat all throughout writing this. For serious.
> 
> Also, given the cray cray shit that went down this weekend, I feel the need to emphasize the fact that **Levi and Mikasa are not related in this story**.

“The deal’s been done.”

That was what Mikasa told Eren one autumn afternoon as they sat by the riverbank. He was skipping rocks and telling her about his day, the way he always did, and that was the only thing she could bring herself to say to him. “The deal’s been done. We have to break up.”

Eren stopped, gripping a stone tightly until it fell from his fist. “What do you mean, the deal’s been done?” he asked with clenched teeth and a hopeless look in his eyes.

“The man my mother and the matchmaker and I have been meeting with,” she replied, tucking her knees under her chin and keeping her eyes on the river. “I’ve told you about him. Levi. He owns--his family owns the big software enterprise in town. He said he would help out my family.” She sighed. “We’ve been in debt for a long time, Eren. We can’t do this anymore. All three of us work--I even work two jobs, you know that--and we can barely scrape together funds for each month. At this rate we could get foreclosed on.”

“We’ll make it work,” Eren cut in with wild eyes and wilder gestures. “We can. I’ll help your family. I can do it--”

“We can’t do this anymore,” Mikasa said, finally turning to look at him and trying to will away the lump in her throat. It was the last thing she wanted to tell him, the last thing she wanted to tell herself. “I don’t want to do this just as much as you. But please. We have to let go. I can’t leave my parents like this for selfish reasons.”

“You never thought love was selfish before.”

“I never thought we had a way out.”

Eren searched her eyes for a long time, the way he did when they were young, the way he did before he held her face and kissed her for the first time. There had been magic in him then; there was nothing in him now, only the tight grip of his fingers on his own shoulders, the bow of his head, and the beginning of the tears he swore he would never allow to fall for her sake. “I could help,” he told her over and over again.

“I know you could. And I would want you to. Believe me, I would.” Mikasa gently pried his hands away and held them to her face, reveling in their warmth and blinking back tears of her own. “But it wouldn’t be enough. We’re not teenagers anymore, Eren. We have to do what’s smart. We have to do what’s best. I have to do this for them.”

“Is that what you keep telling yourself?” he bit out, and she only held his hands more tightly, unable to answer.

“The wedding is in three months,” she whispered, in the hopes that her voice wouldn’t crack; it did. “Please come. I don’t want to do this alone.”

Eren didn’t respond, only tore himself away to throw one last rock and then took her hand in both of his own. "This is really happening," he finally murmured as she leaned into him and rested her free hand on his.

"Please come," Mikasa said again, and again Eren didn't answer her. Instead, he took her face in his hands, searched her eyes once more, and swept the tears away with his thumb before he pressed a final kiss to her mouth. Every second of it, and every second after, tore her to pieces.

\--

She whispered apologies and pleas in the days leading up to the wedding, even as she cut her hair until it clung to her chin, even as she looked at her reflection in the mirror when the day finally came. The diamond ring on her finger felt more like a manacle, the circlet and veil upon her head more like a frayed noose, and when she turned to look into her mother's tired, happy eyes, her last apology caught in her throat. Instead, she said, "I'm ready," with her lips pressed tightly together and every muscle tense.

And perhaps it shouldn't have caught, perhaps she shouldn't have said so. Because when she scanned the crowd as she walked down the aisle, toward death instead of happiness, she saw no signs of Eren anywhere, and she choked on unspoken words in front of a stoic man with a pressed suit and a manacle of his own.

They exchanged unsentimental vows in front of no more than fifty people, and when Levi finally kissed her, she felt lead on his lips and stone on his tongue. His hand clasped over hers in a way that was reminiscent of a business agreement instead of an act of love, and together they strode, solemn and unmoving, to the sleek black car waiting outside. At the reception he touched her only when it was called for, and the moment they were left alone he drew his hand away as though he'd been burnt.

How dare he treat her like this, Mikasa thought to herself as she picked at a meal she knew she didn't deserve. If anything, she should have fed him fiery glares and too-tight grips that left crescents on the back on his hand. "I want to go home," she hissed.

"Start walking," Levi shot back out of the corner of his mouth, a challenging glint in his eye as he nodded and greeted an approaching guest, and she stared daggers at him until the acid under her skin died away. How dare he speak to her like this, she thought again.

"At least a thank you would be nice," he said nonchalantly, between sips of red wine. "You don't have to subject yourself to any more damn torture if you don't want to. But a thank you would be nice."

She nearly broke the stem of her wine glass in her grip, exhaled as much impatience as she could, and fixed her face with a simper. To others at a distance, it would have appeared affectionate; to him, it reeked of cynicism and rebellion. "Thank you," she said in tones that dripped with honey and poison alike, "for killing me, my love."

They didn't touch at all after that, not during the ride home--if she could ever bring herself to call it that--not even when Levi led her up the stairs with words instead of hands and opened a door to a room that was too dark for her to admire, if she could ever bring herself to do so. "This is your room. I sleep down the hall, if you need anything."

"It's our wedding night," she said dully; she might as well have vomited, and it would have felt the same to her.

"Like I said. No more torture. Get some sleep." He ushered her inside, closed the door after her, and left her to herself. A flip of the switch showed her a comfortable bed, drawers and dressers, a vanity with a mirror, a writing desk, and everything she had packed into a couple of cheap suitcases. All cream-colored, all regal, all things she supposed she could use, and yet she was not sure if she truly wanted them. She shuffled to sit at the vanity, willed herself not to cry as she rid herself of every luxury on her body, everything that she knew she didn't want, didn't deserve, didn't need. Instead, she spent the night toying with a tattered satin dress, and the scarf Eren had given her for their anniversary, her face pressed to her mobile phone, as she called Eren and whispered all the apologies she hadn't been able to tell him.

She didn't sleep that night, or the next, spending her time on the phone with her mother, who was settled comfortably with her father in their old home without a debt in sight, or Eren, who talked her through the tears until they choked him, too. She never quite knew what to feel--sometimes she knew nothing but crying, other times she knew nothing but yelling. At her parents, who thought this was the best way, the only way. At Levi, for presenting the opportunity in the first place. At herself, for going along with it all, for not working hard enough. But not at Eren. Never at Eren.

When she left her room three mornings later, a smooth wooden box with a white tag sat in front of her door. _Chamomile tea_ , the tag said. _Tastes like shit to me, but it'll help you sleep. Drink it tonight._

"It isn't poison," Levi said to her when she came down to the kitchen, though she'd stopped all along the way to let her feet sink into the carpet, to toss glances at the occasional painting or flower arrangement, to test the texture of the intricate wallpaper on her fingers. He sat with his own tea, a black brew that he drank from a blue china cup rimmed with gold. "Drink it tonight. It will help. You look like you're in mourning," he added, clicking his tongue and pressing his thumb into the bags under her eyes.

"Maybe I am," Mikasa mumbled, rubbing furiously where he had touched her and wrinkling her nose at the smell of his drink.

Levi only scoffed and shook his head, told her his plans for the day and showed her where she could find him if she needed him, and left her alone again. That was it. That was all it had been these past few days. No honeymoon, no love, nothing. She supposed it was just as well; she wasn't sure she wanted to love him anyway.

That day, and for weeks after, she spent her time working the same old jobs, and wandering the house, poking through books and peering in vases like a curious child, wondering what secrets she could find, what could speak for the man she lived with, more aloof roommate than husband to her. She found nothing particularly out of the ordinary--only books and abandoned teacups that she washed out of spite and the need for cleanliness--but when Levi asked why she still bothered to work, she pressed her tongue hard against the roof of her mouth and said, "I do it for myself. I do it so I don't have to rely on people. Especially you, you and your software money."

Even still, she found herself putting in her two weeks for her job at the bar, still waking up for her eight a.m. coffee before she ran registers and stacked books for a few hours each day. And when she came home, she found more tea and more books stacked outside her bedroom door. It became so much of a habit to her--the silent breakfasts with the man she hated to call her husband, the subtle gifts and provisions that he seemed to know she needed without her ever saying so--that, as much as she hated to admit it, she felt like a part of her was missing if the smooth wooden box was still empty when she came home.

"If you really want to work," Levi told her one morning, a few days after spring had broken, "I have a job for you. Paid, if you really want to 'earn your keep' or whatever it is you think you have to do around here." He clicked his tongue. "There's a garden out back. It's easier to see now that winter's passed. I'll pay you to tend to it."

Mikasa snorted. The nerve he had, to come to her like a parent did to a child. "You might as well give me a weekly allowance."

Levi cocked a brow. "Do you want to work or not?"

"I'll do it for free. At least I'll have something to do."

And so she busied herself with the garden for weeks, got on her hands and knees and tended to crocuses and soft-petaled petunias, shy-looking foxgloves and outrageous tiger lilies. She always supposed she would take up gardening when she got married, planting bulbs here and there and smiling to herself when they took to the soil. She always supposed she would work alongside Eren whenever they had time to spare, gently nudging each other all the while as they gave life to something together.

Instead, she spared herself bitter tears and took out her frustrations on the weeds, harshly tugged at their roots and blew dandelion seeds out into the open. But the stress was gone, and the flowers were there, and if they could emote, she supposed they might be smiling at her, prettily and proudly, hoping she would be there to treat them well throughout the years. At least they seemed to want her.

Sometimes Levi would come out during the weekends, clad in thick gloves and clothes that had evidently been through the laundry one too many times. He worked apart from her, never interfered with her, only coming to her to set a straw hat upon her head--”Nobody likes a damn sunburn,” he told her. He tended to his own parts with more care and precision than she ever expected him to have, with none of the charm of a businessman and all the sensibility of a man of the earth. It was the only time she could ever see him as a person instead of a tycoon, as someone with a soul instead of someone who knew how to work markets and people from all angles.

"What are you looking at?" he asked when they met eyes. He was holding a delicate bulb in both hands, and for a flicker of a moment, he looked human to her, vulnerable, not worth hating.

She froze for a moment before looking down at the red-orange marigolds in front of her. "Nothing," she mumbled, patting hard on the soil around her and stamping out her thoughts in the hopes that she would give life to others instead.

\--

"We have to go to a party tomorrow night," Levi said one morning in late May. "We locked a business agreement overseas. They're coming to see everyone at the company. Do you have something to wear?"

"Why do I have to go?" she asked between sips of coffee, wiggling her toes in the new pair of suede flats she'd bought the other day. It wasn't an expensive thing by any means, but they were shoes, and she could own them with less guilt than she'd been used to. When she'd come home with them, she'd put them on immediately, settled into them and considered it her conquest of the day; and when Levi had told her they were just shoes, she'd narrowed her eyes and told him that objects meant nothing to people who could afford them.

He raised an eyebrow at her, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips, as it often did when she shot back at him so effortlessly. "Because you're my wife," he said with a sort of sarcastic humor in his tone, as though it would change how she felt about him. "Better to spend time with you than a bunch of stuffy older men."

"You do it every day, don't you?" she said under her breath, disregarding the compliment for fear of taking it to heart before she told him she had nothing for the occasion, and he told her to get herself to work, he'd get everything arranged. She came home to a long red dress, made with satin and an outer layer of intricate lace patterns, draped onto her chair. It clung to her, lace and all when she shimmied into it, and the first thing she did, as she looked at herself in the mirror, was apologize. To her mother, for indulging in a luxury when they'd never been able to before. To Eren, for tearing herself away for money, for family. To herself, for going along with it all.

She shook her head and clenched her hand into a fist. She would wear the dress. She would get back to the garden. She would put herself at peace as best as she could, for his sake and hers.

The following night she found herself picking at the dress and nursing her second glass of wine with a fist dug into her chin. She scanned the hall once, twice, three times over, noting the small ensemble playing softly in the corner and the crystal chandelier over her head. She hadn’t really known how to react when she’d first stepped inside the vast hotel, eyes flitting in all directions to take in as much detail as she could. And in spite of herself, she’d clung to Levi’s arm while he told her where they were going; in spite of herself, she’d sat next to him at dinner, fiddled with good china and silverware and food that was almost too rich for her, and she listened to just how he did business and sealed deals with words of both iron and gold. In spite of herself, she admitted that she was married to a successful man. Amid it all, he reached down to take her hand in his own, and when she didn’t respond, his hand slipped away from hers. Whether she could consider it a victory, she didn’t know.

And there he was now, talking at a distance with some guests from overseas, switching between languages effortlessly to make sure the message was clear. She supposed, as she tried to shake the memory of the touch of his hand, that she could consider herself impressed.

“She’s shy,” she could hear Levi saying from a distance, and she scoffed, knowing full well that he was talking about her and just as well that he knew that wasn’t the case at all. He tossed a glance her way and held a hand out to her, and she, supposing that pretending to be happy would be more fun than sitting alone, rose to stand by him and engage in light conversation. A couple of men kissed her hand in greeting; others who could read the fire in her eyes held out their hands for a firm shake, and they joked that she might make a viable business partner in the future.

“It’s possible,” said Levi, and Mikasa cursed herself for not being able to tell whether he was serious or not. When the other men left, Levi spoke to her under his breath. “Stay with me. They look at you like they want to eat you alive.”

“In the business or the bedroom?” Mikasa asked with a snort.

“Both,” Levi hissed, giving her wrist a hard squeeze. “But you could trump them all anyway.”

She raised a brow at him. “Why do you say that?”

There was that threat of a smile again. “Because you’re my wife,” he said, just as he had the day before. “You betray parts of yourself to me all the time. Besides, anyone with sense would see that you weren’t raised to be a trophy. You were raised to take one.”

He paused for a moment, apparently wondering if his words had any effect on her. When he gave up trying to figure her out, he turned to the ensemble, who were starting up a new song. "Come dance with me," he said. It sounded more like a request than an order, but all the same, she stepped back from his words.

"I don't think I can," she said. She wasn't sure if she couldn't, or if she didn't want to, if she only wanted to hold dear the times she and Eren clumsily slow-danced to no music in his living room.

"You? Unable to do something?" Levi scoffed, bringing her back to herself. "I don't believe that for a second." He beckoned her closer with two fingers, took her by the hand, and led her to where the other couples were stepping together, spinning about, with stiff expressions. "Dance with me," he said again. His voice was soft, the look in his eyes strangely softer, and slowly they fell into step together. He was careful not to step on the lace that flared at the bottom of her dress, he spun her and pulled her flush to him at what seemed like all the opportune moments, and when he splayed a hand over her exposed back and slowly brought her down into a dip, it took nearly all of her effort to shake herself out of the haze that engulfed her as he breathed against her lips.

She was burning, and he was burning with her, as he stared into her eyes and said nothing, as he pulled her upright and dragged his hand down to her waist. "I knew you were lying," he whispered, and suddenly she felt as though there were too many people in the room, too many people watching them burn. He seemed to read her face perfectly, as she supposed spouses were meant to do, and told a nearby coworker that his wife was not feeling well and he needed to escort her home, all the while grabbing her wrist and dragging her out of the hotel.

"Home," Levi told their driver once they'd burned all the way to the car, his hand pressed possessively against the small of her back as he nudged her into the back seat. "The long way." He flicked a finger upward as if to emphasize his point, and once the partition clicked into place, they were on one another, joined at the mouth, grasping at each other as much as they could, fingers fumbling with buttons as they breathed heavily against leather and glass.

"You're unbelievable," she whispered against his lips, dress bunched at the hips as she straddled him. The high neckline of her dress was in tatters, and he'd pulled the bodice down to expose her breasts to him.

"And you're mine," he whispered back, a hand disappearing between her legs, and he laughed hollowly against her collarbone as her breath caught in her throat.

There were only frantic movements between them, nothing of love, only the need to sense, to explode; out of impatience, he took her skirt in his hands and tore it at the seam with one clean tug, pulling her down to him and shuddering under her. "You're mine," he said again, and the words never reached her, only settled in the heated air around them, along with the curses, the breaths, the nails that dragged down her skin, the smudges of lipstick that accented the bite marks on his shoulder, the stutter of hips and the fresh stains on their clothes, the arch of her back and the bitten-back groans that she hoped the driver couldn't hear.

When the car finally came to a stop, she was still on top of him, forehead pressed against his bare shoulder, dark red nails still biting into the leather upholstery, his hands tiredly clutching her hips. A long, sated breath left her lips, and when she looked up, Levi was reaching for his suit jacket and sliding her arms into the sleeves. "You look indecent," he said with a weary, smug smile, slowly pulling her off of him and buttoning himself up, and as she readjusted her underwear she realized she didn't have the strength in her to hate him any more that night.

\--

"I'm pregnant."

Mikasa spoke the words over breakfast, poking at what was left of her plate and willing herself not to vomit for the second time that morning. She spoke them with no feeling, only looked down at her stomach and pressed a hand to it, as if it would make the child disappear. “My mother is happy about it,” she added.

Levi's fork fell to the floor with a clatter; that was all she needed to hear before she left the table and locked herself away.

She’d always wanted a child, often thought of the day she would hold hers in her arms, lull it to sleep, watch it grow. She’d told Eren about it time and time again, smiled at the softness in his eyes when he told her it would happen someday. How stupid she’d been, to aspire to something as ideal as that. How stupid she’d been, to think that children could ever be born out of love, to think that she could truly know what love was in the end.

Three knocks on her bedroom door brought her to herself. “Go away,” she snapped as she wrung the corner of her pillowcase in her hands.

“What are you going to do?”

She froze at Levi’s question as it oozed under the door, her grip on the pillowcase loosening slightly, and she looked at her tear-blurred reflection with wide eyes and saw nothing but a scared, tired young woman, helpless for the second time in her life. She heard the door open, and when she turned she saw Levi standing there, looking just as tired as she felt. He didn’t move from his place in the doorway, and the more she looked at him, the more her blood burned her.

“You,” she hissed, one hand curling into a fist as she strode over to him. “You did this to me. You did this to me, you _foul, sorry excuse for a man_.”

He caught her fist before she could land a blow, fingers curling tightly over her hand. “We did,” he murmured, lowering her hand and holding her loosely by the wrist, and suddenly she felt dead in his grip. “We both did.” Slowly, he led her back to her bed, sat her down and pulled up a chair across from her. He said nothing more, only sat there as she dropped her face into her hands and tried to remember what living was, if she knew how to pass it along to someone else.

“I did this,” she said quietly, digging her fingers into her hair.

Levi reached out to touch her head. “We did this,” he said again. “We’re going to do this.”

“No.” She slapped his hand away, stood, and turned to look at her reflection again, staring it down until she felt it cowering under her gaze. “ _I_  am. You’re going to work. Like you always do.” she spat, and suddenly the words tumbled from her lips without cease. “It’s all you’ve ever done anyway. It’s not like you’ve ever cared about anything else, it’s not like you’ve ever wondered how I’ve felt about anything, if I’d ever been in love, if I ever wanted to be alone.” She turned on her heel to stare daggers at him, the way she had on their wedding day. “And now, for once in our 'marriage,' I won’t.”

For a flicker a moment he looked as though her words had killed him. A small part of her hoped they had; a smaller part of her wished they hadn’t.

He didn’t move, only looked down at his folded hands. “If that’s what you want.”

“It is.” It wasn’t.

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

She was still staring at herself when he left, and she was finally the one to cower. That same smaller part of her began to hope that he was still standing by the door.

\--

She tended to herself over the months. She vomited alone, took her pills alone, worked alone, slept alone, as she always had, and paid extra care to the garden in the hopes that it might distract her. Every so often she stopped and clutched her stomach through what the doctor had called “Braxton Hicks contractions,” and she controlled her breaths, just as she had been told to do.

“I’ll take care of the garden,” Levi told her when she came in from the garden one afternoon with soiled jeans and dirt under her fingernails. He was tapping away at his laptop, his eyes flitting between the screen and her steadily-growing belly. “You take care of yourself.”

“It’s a girl,” she replied, and he seemed unable to say anything.

All the while she occasionally called her mother and narrated how she was feeling, told her the things she wanted to hear, as if she were pulling ticker tape out of her throat; more often, she called Eren, asked him to go to the doctor with her so she wouldn’t have to go by herself. Still, she could see the light leave his eyes whenever they mistook him for the father, just as it had left Levi’s when she told him that Eren would be helping her.

“Do you ever think of leaving him?” Eren asked once the doctor had left them alone.

Mikasa kept her eyes on the printed ultrasound, fingertips tracing over the child that was not his. “No,” she murmured, spreading her fingers over her bare stomach.

“Do you _want_  to?"

She swallowed and tried to sit up, and Eren grabbed her arm and helped her. “No.”

Eren paused, letting go of her arm. “Do you…” He searched her eyes, as he always did, looked at her like she’d told him a loved one had died. “Do you love him, Mikasa?”

She shook her head, the corner of the ultrasound crumpling in her grip. “No.”

“Then what do you want to do?”

She looked at him, looked down at his hands; they were clutching hers so tightly that they were shaking. She felt her chest tighten, shut her eyes tightly, lifted their hands to press them to her face. “I don’t know,” she said, and her voice cracked, and she felt him pull her to his chest, rocking her as she cried.

“Do you want me to help with the baby?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I can do it.”

“Mikasa…”

“I can do it.” She looked down at their hands and began to grip his just as tightly. “I can do it, but you can be her godfather. If you want to.”

He gave her hands a squeeze. “I want to.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” And the way he said it made her feel so much warmer, at home again, if only for a while.

When she came home, tired and sore, Levi was still working at his laptop, but the outlets were covered, the cabinets were locked, and metal rails were fitted in the windows. When she reached her room, she found the receipt for a crib on her bed, and the smooth wooden box was filled with red raspberry leaf tea. The room next to hers reeked of paint, and when she peeked inside, the walls were pastel pink. It wasn’t until she went down to fix herself a cup that she noticed the smudges of pink paint on Levi’s hands.

She began to spend more time outside of her room, turning the wooden box over and over in her hand, reading alongside Levi while he worked, their teacups settled beside one another. Sometimes the baby would kick if she sat still enough, sometimes her feet would swell if she stood for too long, and always, always, she would glance to see Levi watching her from afar, even when she told him she could handle things. He would only nod, keep his distance, keep watching, keep working. If he wasn’t working in the living room, he was cooped up in the pink room, and one afternoon when she passed by, she looked in and saw him standing by the newly-assembled crib, fingering the mobile that hovered above it, quietly testing names on his tongue.

“Aiko,” she said, holding her stomach and waiting for a contraction to pass. They were longer now, and closer together, but she could handle them. “Beloved child.”

He nodded. “Aiko,” he agreed, following her out of the room to the stairs, still keeping his distance but watching the contractions as they came. But she could handle them, she told herself, even as her knees buckled at the edge of the stairs and she began to fall forward.

Mikasa could barely register what happened after that: she felt her arm being grabbed, felt herself being yanked away, felt her back hit the wall. There was a yell, a series of thuds, and when she finally came to herself and ran to the top step, she saw Levi sprawled at the bottom of the stairs, clutching his wrist and hissing in pain. She descended the staircase as quickly as she could, heart sinking deep into the pit of her stomach; it took all of her efforts to kneel beside him, taking his wrist in her hands. “What did you do?” she asked him, over and over. “Oh, God, what did you do?”

Levi winced. “I think it’s broken.”

“What did you do?” she asked him again.

His eyes drifted to her stomach as he tried to sit up. “I saved her,” he said hollowly. “Because you always wanted a child. You always wanted a family. You wanted someone to love and to love you. You didn’t want to be alone.” He looked up at her. “Do you really think I was going to let anything take that away from you?”

For a moment, they did nothing but stare at each other, she still holding onto his wrist, he still visibly sore from the fall. For a moment, she said nothing, could do nothing but turn Levi’s words over and over in her head the way she turned over the wooden box. She couldn’t stare daggers at him, couldn’t apologize to him, couldn’t say anything, only quietly searched his eyes until the next contraction came, and the next, and another.

The first thing she said to him was, “I think the baby’s coming.”

The first thing he said to her was, “Oh, God.”

\--

She was alone for nearly an hour before Eren stumbled in, nearly out of breath, and started pacing nervously until she told him he wasn’t helping the situation. “You’re going to have a baby,” he kept saying. “Fuck, you’re going to have a baby.”

“I’m going to have a baby,” she repeated between rhythmic breaths, replaying the moment that Levi had saved her--them--over and over in her head. She could still feel the hard yank on her arm, the slam of her back against the wall; she could still hear the thuds and the sickening crack of bone. “Thank you,” she said. “For coming.”

He paused, looking over to her. “Anything, Mikasa.”

They stayed there for a while, silent and thoughtful, until a nurse came in and told her that she was ready to deliver the baby. And when they wheeled her out on a stretcher, she saw Levi out of the corner of her eye, walking as quickly as he could, his wrist dressed in a cast and tucked into a sling. He followed her into the delivery room, briefly meeting eyes with Eren along the while, and she shared a solemn look with Levi.

“Be good to him,” Mikasa hissed. “He’s her godfather.”

“Says who?”

Mikasa narrowed her eyes at him, nearly crushing his good hand as the pain of another contraction washed over her. “Says the person who’s been carrying her for nine Goddamn months.”

After hours of pushing, screaming, and squeezing Levi’s hand hard enough that he began to think it would break as well, a shrill cry permeated the delivery room, the doctor held a baby girl like porcelain in his hands, and Mikasa fell back against the hospital bed. The moment Mikasa laid eyes on her, a warmth filled her body, reached her fingertips. She couldn’t hate her. She couldn’t hate this child. She couldn’t hate herself. She couldn’t hate him. Not anymore.

“Where are they taking her?” she asked feebly once the final procedures were done, the cord was cut, and they carried her away.

“They’re giving her a bath,” Levi murmured, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. “She’ll come back. She’s your baby.”

“She’s our baby,” she said tiredly, and he helped her sit up when the doctor brought back the baby, still crying, and laid her in Mikasa’s arms, walking her through the first breastfeeding. “She’s Aiko."

“What does she feel like?” he asked, and when she looked over to him, she realized he was looking solemnly down at his cast.

She smiled, blinking back tears. “Little. God, she’s so little. And warm. And soft. And beautiful.”

“Beautiful,” Levi repeated, reaching up to gently stroke the crown of the baby’s head with his fingertips. “She’s going to be beautiful. And smart. And she’s going to drive a good car.”

“Because she has her father’s money?”

Levi shook his head as the baby coiled a tiny hand around his finger. “Because she has her mother’s brains.” Slowly, he brushed a lock of damp hair from her eyes and leaned in to press a soft kiss to her forehead, and she might have considered the first time he ever showed her love, if not for the stairs, the pink room, the supplies, the dress, the garden, the smooth wooden box. It all came together like the shards of a broken glass to her. They weren’t perfect, they didn’t fit neatly the way she had always expected them to. But they fit together somehow, and even with all the fissions she could put the picture together and make something of it. They could make something of it; they both could.

“Go get Eren,” she whispered with a tired smile. “There’s someone he needs to meet.”

She was sent home in a few days’ time, though Levi barely left her side all throughout, and over the weeks she spent her time in the pink room, tiredly sipping cups of black tea and smiling through the spokes of the crib. Sometimes she would fall asleep on the rocking chair nearby, and she would often wake up to Levi gently gripping her shoulder and telling her that Aiko might need to be fed or changed. But Mikasa found the most peace in holding her, splaying a hand across her back, whispering her name, and rocking her or walking around with her until she fell asleep, even though Mikasa knew she would wake and the process would start again. Eren came over more often than not, bouncing Aiko in his arms and stumbling over her name, told her he loved her and told Mikasa to get some Goddamn rest, he could see the bags under her eyes from a mile away. She only laughed in response, taking a gurgling Aiko from him and telling her not to listen to Uncle Eren, he was just crazy.

And over the weeks, Levi would sit with her, gently reaching out every so often to stroke the dark tuft of hair atop Aiko’s head or cautiously finger the pastel cuffs of her clothing. He worked alongside her as best as he could, and sometimes she laughed softly at his attempts to type and click with one hand, but he worked hard, and he was brilliant, and she couldn’t fault him for that.

Over time, his wrist healed, and every so often he would slowly stretch or roll it, clenching and unclenching his hand to get it working again. She only shook her head in response, holding Aiko close to her and smiling to herself as he typed. Always working. That was Levi.

She woke one night to the familiar sound of shrill crying from the pink room, and she cracked her eyes awake and tried to shake the sleep off of her limbs. She heard the sound of light shushing as she shuffled across the threshold, and she squinted into the darkness of the room to see Levi bending over the crib, carefully picking her up and holding her to him as he took a seat in the rocking chair. “I know I’m not your mom,” he said in a voice just above a whisper as he rocked her, “But maybe I can be good enough for you, too. I’m your dad.” He laughed to himself, and it almost sounded like he was concealing a sob. “This is your dad.”

Smiling tiredly, she drew up a nearby stool and sat by him as the baby stilled and fell asleep in his arms. “You’re holding her,” she whispered.

He hummed in affirmation, tucking Aiko’s head under her chin as he continued to rock. He looked as though he never wanted to let her go, as though taking her away from him would be ripping away his only source of life. “Go back to sleep,” he whispered back. “You’ve barely slept. I’ll handle it.”

“Do you want to come with me?” She paused, chewing on her lower lip. “There’s room for two.”

The question hung in the air between them, and he contemplated a moment, holding Aiko more closely to him, before he replied. “Only if you agree to let me put her back to sleep when she wakes up.”

“Agreed.” Mikasa gave a groggy laugh. “A pleasure doing business with you, sir.”

“Pleasure’s mine,” he answered, laying Aiko down, taking Mikasa back to her bed, and pulling her close to him. They didn’t share a kiss, only a look, and he tucked some hair behind her ear and watched her until she dropped into sleep.

They were broken glass, the two of them, with their legs tangled and her head upon his outstretched arm. But, she supposed, even broken glass could be put together again.


End file.
